{"id":376492,"date":"2025-08-27T02:25:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T02:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/376492\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T02:25:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T02:25:11","slug":"who-can-chelsea-fc-face-in-champions-league-dream-and-nightmare-draw-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/376492\/","title":{"rendered":"Who can Chelsea FC face in Champions League? Dream and nightmare draw revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/newsletter_chelsea_embed_desktop.png\" alt=\"Chelsea Football Newsletter\" width=\"158px\" height=\"158px\" class=\"sc-fbFiXs buKFXK\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The previous group stage of eight groups consisting of four teams each has been ditched in favour of a new league format.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, all 36 teams will be separated into four pots and two will be drawn from each. They will face eight different opponents, playing four matches at home and four away.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The draw takes place on Thursday, August 28, 2025 from 5pm BST and much of it will be automated due to the sheer number of fixtures to be organised.<\/p>\n<p>The play-off ties across Tuesday and Wednesday will decide the remaining qualifiers and complete the subsequent pots before <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/topic\/enzo-maresca\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Enzo Maresca<\/a>\u2019s discovers the size of the task he faces this season.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Which pot are Chelsea in for the Champions League draw?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Chelsea have been placed in Pot 1, despite their current coefficient which has them sat 14th in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/topic\/uefa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UEFA<\/a>\u2019s rankings for European teams.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Who can Chelsea face in the Champions League draw?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The ceremony will produce eight opponents for every team, two from each pot. That means Chelsea will play two of the top-ranked clubs.<\/p>\n<p>They cannot play a team from their own country (Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham, Newcastle or Manchester City) at this stage and can only play a maximum of two teams from a different association.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pot 1:<\/strong> PSG, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Inter Milan, Borussia Dortmund, Barcelona<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pot 2:<\/strong> Bayer Leverkusen, Atletico Madrid, Atalanta, Villarreal, Juventus, Eintracht Frankfurt<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pot 3:<\/strong> PSV, Ajax, Napoli, Sporting, Olympiacos, Slavia Prague, Bodo\/Glimt, Marseille<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pot 4:<\/strong> Monaco, Galatasaray, Union Saint-Gilloise, Athletic Club, Pafos, Kairat<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dream scenario for Chelsea<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Inter Milan, Borussia Dortmund, Juventus, Leverkusen, Sporting, Slavia Prague, USG, Kairat.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nightmare scenario for Chelsea<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid, TBC, Napoli, Marseille, Galatasaray, TBC.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Champions League group-stage matchdays<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The exact make-up of each week in terms of kick-off times and match dates will be provided by UEFA.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Matchday 1<\/strong><strong>: <\/strong>September 16-17, 2025<\/p>\n<p><strong>Matchday 2<\/strong><strong>:<\/strong> September 30-October 1<strong>, <\/strong>2025<\/p>\n<p><strong>Matchday 3<\/strong><strong>: <\/strong>October 21-22, 2025<\/p>\n<p><strong>Matchday 4<\/strong><strong>: <\/strong>November 4-5, 2025<\/p>\n<p><strong>Matchday 5<\/strong><strong>: <\/strong>November 25-26, 2025<\/p>\n<p><strong>Matchday 6<\/strong><strong>: <\/strong>December 9-10, 2025<\/p>\n<p><strong>Matchday 7<\/strong><strong>: <\/strong>January 20-21, 2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>Matchday 8<\/strong><strong>: <\/strong>January 28, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The previous group stage of eight groups consisting of four teams each has been ditched in favour of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4100],"tags":[131324,1367,94,79,6536,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-376492","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-champions-league-draw","9":"tag-enzo-maresca","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uefa","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115098362173646409","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}